A New Mechanism for the Maintenance of Fair Weather Electric Field and Cloud Electrification

Abstract

Wilson's hypothesis of the global electric circuit with the thunderstorms as generators has not been proven up to now. The exact physical mechanism responsible for the generation of fair weather electric field is not clearly understood. Some of the recent remarkable observations showed evidence for the horizontal fields in the magnetosphere and ionosphere which penetrate atleast into the stratosphere and perhaps into the troposphere. In the present paper a gravity wave feed back mechanism (cell dynamical system model) for the coupling of the troposphere and the ionosphere has been discussed. The physical mechanism proposed can offer an alternate explanation for the atmospheric electrical phenomena during fair and disturbed weather.